This essay reflects on the role of tradition in Chinese mountain and water painting (shanshui hua) and in contemporary artistic practice. The author argues that shanshui painting developed gradually, each generation inheriting and reworking the experience of its predecessors through long practice of brush and ink, and that this continuity has produced a complete system rich in teaching resources: copying, sketching, calligraphy, seal carving, poetic inscription and painting theory. Playing on the Chinese word for tradition, chuantong (传统), as something that both “passes on” and “unifies”, the text presents tradition not as a burden that crushes creativity, as the historical avant-gardes claimed, but as a support and foundation that supplies the means of expression. Because the materials of brush, ink, paper and silk have remained largely unchanged, techniques and theories formulated a thousand years ago remain applicable today. The relationship with the past must be active and selective, avoiding both mere copying and destructive rupture. Examples include Shen Zhou’s reworking of Wang Meng in Lofty Mount Lu and Picasso’s encounter with African art. The author concludes that artists who engage sensitively with their own and other traditions can create something genuinely new.